River's Diary
by gottalovett
Summary: A prompt from lj's spoiler song ficathon *spoilers for s6 e7*. Rory gives River Amy's old, unused diary. She tells him in diary letters of her life, of his and Amy's life, of stories and what they mean, of love and romance, and of running with The Doctor.


_These entries aren't in an order, aside from the first and last, just like River's timeline. Just so's you know :)_

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><p>The blue cover was decorated childishly with poster blue paint like a TARDIS. Rory had done it himself and even used recyclable paper and bound the pages in. There was an ex libris sticker at the front. Decorated in silver to match the blue.<p>

_This is the property of Amelia Pond, beloved wife of Rory Pond._

The first page had a small note from Rory, in his neat nurse's training writing, block lettered and even.

_We christened you Melody Pond, but it doesn't seem right to say that, not when I have known you as I have as River Song. Besides, don't tell your mother I said this, but River is a lovely name. In many ways you are very much like her. Maybe we should have guessed sooner, but we were both never exposed to the vagaries of time and space until The Doctor picked us up. Besides, we humans don't think in that non linear way. Amy is wild and free and beautiful and adventurous and brave and I see these things in you too my daughter. _

_But there is more to you than just the sum of your mother. Glittering and dangerous and frightening and flighty and fiercely intelligent, I think I am right to fear that you will leave us young, my darling miniature Pond and so instead of whining about it I ask you to keep the diary that Amy never was interested in keeping instead. I made it for her when we were children, modelling it off what I thought then was a man and a box out of her imagination._

_I ask you to keep it with you and write down your own adventures in these pages. Even though your mother and I might be far away, we will know you are thinking of us when you write in this book and we will share in your trials and your tribulations, your mistakes and your successes, just the same as if we were standing there beside you. No matter what happens remember that we love you._

_Our Melody, our River, our very own super hero..._

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><p>Oh Rory. Rory Williams who became Pond because that's the way things worked. It took a long time for this writing to even appear you know. Time is the boss of us, no matter what a certain Time Lord tries to claim. This was one of the few things I had at the orphanage; one of the few things that I knew was truly mine. Do you want to know how it came to me Rory? Maybe by now you've already guessed.<p>

It was the day he and I first met. I was four years old and he appeared in my tiny bed room. The only things I owned back then were the clothes I was wearing (red gum boots and a knitted beanie. I always have wondered what the story behind those was. Surely there is one. The TARDIS whispered to me once the story of a girl who waited. I always thought She meant me but...) and a photograph of myself as a little baby in a white pod (Amy never showed up till years later in the frame. Timey wimey again.) Anyway, The Doctor appeared, rather subdued for him, though I wouldn't find that out till later, and he handed me this diary.

"Hi there little Melody," he said, like he knew me already (which he did of course.)

"Hi," I said, "my name is River Song, not Melody Pond."

"Well. Hello then River," he said unfazed. "I have a gift for you." He leant down and tapped me on the nose. "It is something you must guard with your life. Can I trust you with that?"

I nodded awed as he handed me over this notebook, though at the time it was completely blank.

"It's very important you have this River. One day it will all be clear." He grinned that annoyingly hot cheeky grin of his. "Oh you'll lead an interesting life my girl." And then he looked sad and I didn't know why so I kissed him softly on the cheek and he was surprised I think but then he covered it up by talking fast, "you have to leave the first two pages blank River. Remember that. The first two pages must be blank."

I thought maybe he had come to take me away from the lonely place I was mired in but he had other companions back then to see to, other places and problems and people to fix. You said to me once that you didn't need to imagine the effect that such a meeting would have on a child. You said you already knew, already had experienced it.

At the time I thought you were talking about yourself, your own childhood. It was my mother though wasn't it. It was little Amelia Pond. Sitting on a suitcase looking up at the stars waiting for her Doctor to come back. To come home.

People say I led an interesting life and my don't I know it without them telling me! But you know, I don't think it was as interesting as two ordinary people who were about to get married on earth one day, two people who had to wait a long time, two people who suffered and ran with my Doctor and in the end were very happy together. People don't know you and you're not famous in the history books (even if The Lone Centurion is) but I know you and I know that you two were special...

The Doctor once said this at a wedding. "Rory Williams: the boy who waited. Good on you, mate." He had the rights of it after all Daddy. I love you.

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><p>Rory,<p>

We have a joke between us, you know. The Doctor and I. About handcuffs and fairy tales. I'm an archaeologist. I think about things like history and memory and identity and how they merge and split apart when we want them to do so, about how stories grow out of something into a legend. I taught The Doctor that. "We're all fairy stories in the end Doctor." He doesn't know everything Rory, even if he pretends he does. I learnt that fairly quickly. I wonder if you and Amy ever did?

Why this sudden musing? It's the anniversary of the Doctor's and my adventure with the weeping angels today. Such days are my best days, father. The ones where he and I are together, when I can see him, when I am out of my prison cell, when we can be heady young ones in love. These are the blessed days. The very best of the best days.

Anyway, back to The Doctor. I met my mother for the first time on that day. Such a young girl to be travelling through all of time and space, at twenty one. I suppose I shouldn't have been all that surprised. I think he likes the sense of wonder the younger ones exhibit. I wouldn't be surprised. I thought maybe Amy was in love too with my Doctor, but that was just adolescent confusion; it was always you she was after.

That day, my mother was very, very brave and the Doctor was very, very callous and I tried to comfort her, even though I was a stranger. Amy looked in the face of an Angel and escaped. She escaped even the cracks in time when the rest of the army who protected her were eaten up. She walked with her eyes shut and Angels closing in all the way back to The Doctor and I and safety. I think she was braver in that one collection of moments than I have never ever been...

My beautiful, feisty Mum. Amelia Pond.

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><p>Rory,<p>

I saw you today. In your centurion garb in my prison hangar. I'd escaped earlier because it was my birthday and He had taken me out on a date. His birthday kiss tasted like strawberries (well probably because that was what we had been eating) but also something else. Strange and tangy; I was reminded of fireworks. I thought at first I would be jealous of other past romances, but strangely enough I wasn't when he told me about them.

I've had my fair share of unusual boyfriends after all. All of them aliens. Of course. People feel disgusted when I tell them that. I could never figure out why. The Doctor was cryptic about feelings and people he had known as per usual. "You would have gotten along well with a man named Captain Jack Harkness," was all he said when I told him about my love affair with a two headed alien I'd met in a bar in the 51st century on expedition.

I came back drunk on a 17th century vintage bottle of wine and sex by The Thames. You didn't seem to notice. Too busy worrying about Amy and where we each were in our respective time streams. Even drunk it hurt that I couldn't tell you the truth, and so you had to go away thinking I was letting you, Amy, and The Doctor down.

You took it much better than poor Amy did in the end. I have to give you that.

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><p>Rory,<p>

"The only water in the forest is the river." How did I even know to say that? The TARDIS told me. We were always good friends. I always knew that she and The Doctor would have something more than even I could have with him. I accepted that. What was it Amy once said? (The TARDIS thought it was one of the more intelligent things a human companion had said and stored it in Her memory drive) "It will be you and her long after the rest of us have gone." Well said mother, well said.

This was the far worse day. The day that nearly destroyed his faith in me, and broke yours and Amy's heart. I was the baby that was stolen from you. But there was more than just that, even if the implications hadn't quite hit you yet. I was the one who would be an enemy's most powerful weapon. In the end it was written in stone and sometimes time cannot be rewritten, can never ever be rewritten.

The truth of the matter is this.

_I killed Amelia Pond._

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><p>The Doctor and I had a picnic near the cliffs of Asgard. We had sex. Again. There was Time Lord energy all around us, flowing in and between, gold and beautiful.<p>

If I ever have a daughter I should call her Amelia. I wonder if The Doctor would ever agree to that?

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><p>"<em>In bed above,<em>

_Or deep asleep,_

_What greater loves_

_Lie further deep_

_This dream must end_

_This world must know_

_We all depend on the beast below."_

Rory,

Did you know that Amy wrote poetry? It was at the top of this page. Strangely appropriate for the situation I now find myself in. When My Doctor is pushed too far, he gets angry. Dangerously angry. I mean capable of mass genocide angry. I am not afraid of him, never that, but I am afraid for him. For when A Good Man Goes to War who knows what manner of story shall follow in his wake; who knows what men will whisper behind his back, who knows what new enemies he will make, who knows how far his isolation can go as he is reviled by everyone across a galaxy.

He's my Doctor. I would never let him go; not even if he killed in haste and repented at leisure. But it _would_ hurt me to see him hurt by an entire universe, even beyond it. He doesn't deserve that. Not ever. I may have been used as a weapon, but that does not mean I cannot help him now. I will show him what it means to be known throughout multiple galaxies. I will show him how power is a double edged sword.

I owe him that.

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><p>Rory Pond. My father. My Dad. I wonder if you will ever read this. Is that even possible? Oh, how I hope so sometimes Daddy. How I hope so.<p>

I've been contracted on a trip to a deserted library. The team is good, even if the bastard organising it is just that; a first rate bastard. Besides I've always loved the unknown. Just look at the man I married...

I have a feeling this is going to be dangerous. I have a feeling this might be the end of something... I have a feeling... they are coming... the others... there is no more time... no one can ever see...

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><p>Daddy,<p>

Does it hurt to know that my story ended in a tragedy of a kind? The Doctor saved me in the computer mainframe but I cannot get out and he cannot ever come to me without taking my place in the computer mainframe. And yet father, I am content here. I have my children, and a fate that I alone have chosen. And The Doctor continues, and his timeline with me has not yet happened and he is with a red haired lady named Donna Noble. Her time is marked short but what little I saw of her I liked. She'll keep him grounded, will that Donna. I only wish I could tell her thank you.

But then none of that really matters. It's all about us. You. Me. Amy. We were never connected by being a real family. We never had that chance or that choice. But we are connected by something else, something perhaps even more powerful and maybe someone someday will find this diary, replicated on the shelf in the library, and read what I have written to you and understand.

Because we are all connected by our common stories. "We are all stories in the end. Let's make it a good one." The Doctor always was fond of that saying.

I think perhaps you already knew what I was about to tell you the last time we ever met. I think perhaps you always knew it. You and Amy. Mum. And I'm so sorry Rory. So sorry it had to be that way but you forgave me and that was all that mattered. Do you still remember my last piece of advice to you, as we stood beside mother's grave and you wept and I placed a flower against the gravestone head?

"_When you run with the Doctor, it feels like it will never end. But however hard you try, you can't run forever._

_Some days are special. Some days are so, so blessed. Some days nobody dies at all. Now and then, every once in a very long while—every day in a million days when the wind stands fair and the Doctor comes to call—everybody lives."_

And in reply you said nothing at all. You hugged me and I said, "goodbye Dad, I love you." And you and The Doctor found the way to bring her back. Not back from the dead. That's the stuff of fantasy. But in an alternative universe...

But enough Dad. Our story is over. Isn't it? But The Doctor's is not.

Whoever reads this diary, I ask only one thing. Find him for me, if you can. Tell him from me, "Goodbye Doctor. Live long. Love hard. And make it a good one sweetie."


End file.
